HARD TIMES FOR EDUCATION

"Hard Times", written by Dickens in 1854, is a patchy novel whose overall quality falls far short of such masterpieces as "Bleak House", "Great Expectations" and "Little Dorrit". Dickens was always at his best when writing instinctively and at his worst when writing didactively and "Hard Times" contains far too much of the latter. Nevertheless the novel is deservedly famous for its opening scene in a local charity school maintained by industrial magnate, Thomas Gradgrind, who is exercising his power to inspect the work of the school.

As the novel begins, Gradgrind is expounding his educational philosophy to a class of largely uncomprehending children: the point of going to school is to learn nothing but facts. His eye falls on a child who has learnt from birth how to manage and look after horses, because her parents earn their living giving riding displays in a local circus. He addresses her not by name but as "girl number twenty" and demands that she gives a "definition of a horse". Flustered by Gradgrind's aggression, the girl is unable to give a satisfactory response so is scornfully dismissed: "Girl number twenty unable to define a horse. Girl number twenty possessed of no facts in relation to one of the commonest of animals." A boy then presents the answer that Gradgrind is seeking:"Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely twentyfour grinders, four eye-teeth and twelve incisive" etc etc "Now girl number twenty," says Gradgrind,"you know what a horse is."

"Hard Times" was written 170 years ago, 16 years before the Forster Education Act introduced the beginnings of state education, yet the ideas that Dickens satirised in this scene have not gone away: if anything they have been greatly strengthened since 2010. The promotion of the "knowledge rich curriculum" does not differ much, if at all, from Gradgrind's demand that the children only memorise and repeat "facts" and Gradgrind's visit to the classroom eerily prefigures OFSTED. Dickens recognised the sterility of this approach to education, which is why the Head Teacher in the school is called M'Choakumchild. Dickens even foresaw the last government's preoccupation with mechanical approaches to the teaching of reading and the study of English: M'Choakumchild is well versed in "othography, etymology,syntax and prosody" (Dickens would probably have included "fronted adverbials" if he had ever heard of them).

The 19th century philosopher, John Stuart Mill, was educated by his father, James Mill, along Gradgrindian lines. He was a more than very bright child - he was reading classical Greek at age four and his IQ has been retrospectively calculated to have been around 200. Eventually Mill had a severe mental breakdown. He found that reading imaginative literature, especially the poetry of Wordsworth, helped greatly with his recovery. He later blamed his collapse on his education which, he said, had neglected "the very culture of the feelings".

The lessons for the new government are obvious but will they heed them?